Sketch: Jeremy Corbyn every inch the Audley Harrison undercard during PMQs

The Ghost of Ali has a busy appointments book at the moment, and it’s possible he wasn’t there to witness Jeremy Corbyn paying tribute to him at Prime Minister’s Questions. He might have found it all rather sad. Boxing misses its superstars. The men who could throw a punch, take a punch and chuck out a bit of dazzling poetry. ‘I’ve handcuffed lightning. I’ve thrown thunder in jail.’ That sort of stuff.

PMQs, as per usual, was every inch the Audley Harrison undercard. Float like a floater. Stink like one too.

It’s possible Corbyn’s Ali opener was a bit of a ruse. Last time he paid tribute to the passing of a cultural icon, it was the working class poet Arthur Wesker, whom Cameron could only refer to in his reply as ‘the famous playwright’, having quite clearly never heard of him.

Ali was a rather more straightforward prospect. “We’d all like to float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, though circumstances don’t always make it possible,” he said - the sort of clunking oratorical footwork that should by rights end with you being knocked spark out in the first minute, the pictures immortalised forever in posters on every bedroom wall in the land.

But then, it’s only Corbyn. When you’ve actively campaigned for the disbandment of the armed forces, no one’s really expecting you to do anything like land even the faintest of jabs.

Imagine the scene. The robe comes off. The bell rings. Seconds out. Then out steps the challenger, waving a placard deploring violence and launching an online petition against the act of throwing a punch.

As per usual, it was Cameron’s own corner who hit him the hardest.

Richard Drax. Liam Fox. All the other Brexiteering bleaters. Peter Bone had his luminous green ‘Grassroots Out’ tie. He’d been wearing it in the ‘spin room’ after Tuesday night’s ITV debate. When he went to the pub afterwards, it was in his pocket within three seconds.

Of course, in these rarefied times, PMQs scarcely counts even as the undercard. The real fight’s on 23 June. Not that Corbyn will be taking part in that one either.